Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Kathikali

Just saw the most amazing dance perfomance by a local performance company - Mudra Kathikali Centre. Kathikali stands for KATHI - heaven and Kali- dance. The peformers are all male and play both male and female roles. They did a demo before the dance performance where one peformer (set to drums and a man playing a large set of finger cymbals) showed us the facial and torso movements, the hand mudras (and the meanings behind each one) and symbolic dances. The performer was amazing- the first demo was on the eyes. The performer did circles, horizontal and vertical slides all set to the beat of the drum. He would catch accents, speed up and slow down, then go into double time. We felt quit dizzy waching him! Then he went onto to show the facial expressions: with just a wiggle of an eyebrow and a movement of the mouth he demostrated grief, happiness, anger, courage, peace, disgust, and fear. It was incredible how fast he could change expressions and change the mood in the room. then he went down into the torso and did some shoulde shimmies, circles, and then into the dance. The muscular control was amazing, and I sat on the edge of my seat for the whole demo. when the performance started I was enthralled from the getgo and sat with my mouth open in amazement. As a dancer myself I have such admiration for all the hadwork, control, and precision that I witnessed here. The performance took us to another land, and when it was over I was shaken out of a dreamlike state. We hung around afterwards to chat with the performes, and I tried to convince them to come to Canada and do a tour...they wouldn't sweat so much in our climate! If you have a chance to YOUTUBE Kathikali do so, I'm not sure if it's even on the but have a look and see. Amazing!! xoxox